Pakistan supporters cheer during a group match against Australia. The country is at fever pitch as a World Cup final beckons. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP

From the Khunjerab Pass to Kolkata, from the Himalayas to the tip of Tamil Nadu, the Indian subcontinent is in a frenzy. Offices are shutting and hospitals are postponing elective operations.

For the tens of thousands of people crammed into Mohali stadium near the Indian city of Chandigarh, the two prime ministers in the stands and the hundreds of millions watching on television, Wednesday's one-day cricket match between India and Pakistan is about greater things than winning a place in the final of the World Cup.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India's hugely popular captain, tried to damp down the massive expectations on his team as they prepared for the semi-final.

"Somebody has to lose this game, irrespective of political talking," Dhoni said. "At the end one team will have lost and one will be going into the final. That's part and parcel of sport. Every sport."

Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan captain and candidate for player of the tournament, also tried to calm tensions. "We have not come to fight a war. We have come to play a cricket match."

Not everyone was so sanguine.

Samir Chinoy, 33, an industrialist from the Pakistani port city Karachi, said he had travelled to Chandigarh for "a historic game that you can only dream of".

"It's a great opportunity for the two countries to mend fences, to show there are no differences between the people. The governments should learn from the average citizen," he said.

Much attention will be focused on Sachin Tendulkar, idolised across India, who could today become the first player to make a hundred centuries in international cricket.

Others, including former England captain Michael Vaughan, believe he is saving that milestone for the final, in Tendulkar's home city of Mumbai.

India have not won the cricket World Cup since 1983, and hopes for success are high. The behaviour of the crowd, especially if India lose against Pakistan, will be closely watched. The two states were separated bloodily at independence nearly 64 years ago and have fought three wars since.

"Normally, in any game, the focus is on the 22 people playing. But this time, the focus will be on the spectators," said Mazher Hussain, an Indian peace activist who arranged for a group of Pakistanis to come for the match.

There are hopes – as well as widespread scepticism – that the match can bring a breakthrough in relations between Pakistan and India, sunk in a glacial chill since Pakistan-based terrorists attacked India's commercial capital of Mumbai in 2008.

Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, accepted an invitation from his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, to watch the match. The planned dinner after the game will be the highest-level contact between the neighbours since the Mumbai attack.

India has deployed 48,000 police and paramilitaries and placed thousands more soldiers on alert. Local media reported anti-aircraft guns were being placed in strategic locations in Chandigarh.

However, the World Cup, held in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, has so far been free of any major incidents.

Thousands of Pakistanis were supposed to pour across the border for the five-hour, 150-mile road trip across the western Indian state of Punjab to Chandigarh. Only a few hundred were able to get tickets and visas. Mohammad Farooq, a porter on the Pakistani side of the border said he had not seen "one ordinary person go over, a common man" crossing. "They're all big people."

"Of course it will be a battle in the field, but not a war off the field I hope," said Azar Malik, 55, as he took five members of his family across the border from Pakistan.

Only half the 28,000 seats in the Mohali stadium have been made available for the public. The rest are to be distributed to India's ubiquitous and numerous VIPs.

In Chandigarh, one man was reported to have offered to sell his liver to make enough money to buy a ticket from touts. In Pakistan, desperate fans were buying seats for at least 25 times face value.Fortune-telling parrots, astrologers, saints, mullahs and priests have all been consulted and invoked by fans on both sides. But all hoped for a peaceful ending.

Mohammad Bashir Bozai, originally from the vast southern metropolis of Karachi, had flown from Chicago to be at the game. With his face painted in the green and white of Pakistan and carrying a huge national flag, he hugged a man dressed in Indian colours, declaring that he would be happy whoever won.

"I came with no ticket, this lady saw me outside the stadium and just handed me a ticket. Everything comes from God," said Bozai, 55.

Few sports teams have gone into a match under such scrutiny – not for their prowess with the bat and ball but with the mobile phone and the brown envelope.

Unwelcome advice

Pakistan's cricketers will play tonight with a warning from their country's interior minister, Rehman Malik, ringing in their ears.

On Monday, Malik said that though he was "sure the team has very clean members", a corruption scandal exposed by the News of the World last year meant he could take "no risks".

The comments by Malik, who spoke of keeping a "close watch" on players with "strict surveillance", provoked an outraged reaction in Pakistan.

The minister tried to undo the damage his remarks had done, calling Shahid Afridi, the Pakistani captain, to apologise.

Malik said on Twitter that "a section of press has twisted my statement out of context, and wrongly projected my words".

Another tweet said: "My only intention was and is that Pak cricket team play and perform their best. The support and prayers of the whole nation r with them."

According to some estimates, more than £650m has been bet on the tournament, most of it illegally.